On Friday, April 17, twenty-two women from St. A's and our group leader, Dare Cox, who travelled from Michigan to be with us, arrived at the Holy Spirit Retreat Center in Encino for the St. A's annual women's retreat. The retreat center is run by the Sisters of Social Services, a Catholic Benedictine order founded in 1926. The founder of the order, Sister Margaret Slachta, was beatified in 2006 for work she did in Hungry which was instrumental in saving the lives of more than 1000 Jews during World War II. The retreat center is open to all – interfaith in its mission to provide spiritual renewal through contemplation, prayer, and reflection. The retreat center was originally part of the Hays ranch. It is 10 acres nestled in its own small canyon. There is a beautiful pond as well as a peace garden that is a loving work in progress. This was our second retreat at this location. We were very glad to come back to the beautiful setting that seemed miles away from the urban life that in reality was all around us – but at a distance in this sacred space.

The women's retreats are special because they always encompass both the old and the new. The old is the routine, the schedule we follow which includes the fellowship of meals, the times for group activities and free time, the art project on Saturday afternoon, and the worship service on Sunday. The new is ever-changing Mother Nature, the adventure of renewing friendships and getting to know the newcomers, and the chance to hear more stories from each other that leave us alternately deeply moved and rolling on the floor in laughter. The sense of community is profound, and I thirst for it during the entire time between the retreats.

This year, with Dare Cox as our leader, we were given the opportunity to reflect upon the holy within ourselves. We each struggled to find the holiness in ourselves even as we could see it so obviously in each other. We therefore also had the opportunity to reflect upon the holiness of our community. In truth, I can be critical of formal group activities. My "monkey brain," as Hartshorn calls it in his sermons, resists turning this critical self off. But the exercises that Dare offered were a chance to revision our desires, attitudes, and goals in ways that were extraordinarily useful because the exercises allowed us to reconceptualize our relations with ourselves, to see in ourselves the manifestation of the holy, though we also know we are simply a variety of 21st century, Southern Californian, Episcopalian women - typical in many ways of our education and class, yet unique in our joys and suffering, unique in our definitions of faith and holiness.

Because I am a seasoned retreat participant, having spent many Octobers at Camp Stevens and at the various spring retreats with the St. A's sisterhood, I finally knew not to bring work. I was even brave enough to not phone home. I figured out that a husband and a daughter could get to music lessons and drama classes or not without my cellular guidance. Instead, I brought the writings of Julian of Norwich and a screenplay, a Western, that I wrote more than twenty years ago, to read and reflect upon.

I will spare my gentle readers my ruminations on my western. Suffice to that I was delighted to find that it held up much better than I had thought. However, St. Julian is a different story. She, as Hartshorn, Joyce Stickney, and Richard and Judy Peace have taught me, was a late medieval anchoress and mystic whose writing are among the first women's texts recorded in English. In her "Short Text," she has this to say about God's love: "I saw that for us he is everything that is good and comforting and helpful." Her words are simple, but their impact, if they enter one's heart is immense. Later in her text, she points out how much delight and pleasure God takes in our prayers and good deeds. As I read these fourteenth-century revelations, I found myself deeply reflecting upon Julian's understanding of God's delight and pleasure. Delight and pleasure are the same sensations the retreat time gives me, and each year the sense of serenity and peace seems more profound. This time, I felt touched by the Holy Spirit through St. Julian and all the St. A's women (including Dare as a visiting member of St. A's of course) around me. Thank-you all! The retreat space in time and location offers wholeness and a healing that often can be lacking in our daily lives. In retreat, both our individual and our community holiness, our sense of our world and selves as sacred, thrive.

Thanks to all those who made this retreat possible for us. You know who you are.

The 2010 Women's Retreat will be held May 14-16 in Palos Verdes.
The 2010 Men's Retreat will be held April 20-May 2 in Malibu.
The 2009 "Family Fun Weekend" will be held Oct. 2-4 in Julian.